En La Memoria
by Gryphonic
Summary: A one-off work, for a character I play on an ROC site.


**Introduction**: This piece was originally written for Klavorna, a character that I play at Black Arch Fort. She is a hare, one of the most hardbitten and complex characters I have ever created, and here I try to capture that complexity while emphasizing a little-known side of her: her capacity for love and friendship. There is a twist however: I used a different technique with this work, rather than simply handling it as a straightforward story. I saw a friend use a technique of combining a song into a story once, and admiring her style and purpose I decided to try it myself here. Below is the result of my experiment with her technique.

**Disclaimer/Copyright**: The song used in this work is "On the Side of Me" by Corrinne May, copyright to her and her only. I do not in any claim to have written or composed this wonderful work of music. Likewise, the Redwall series is copyright to Brian Jacques, its author and creator. However, Klavorna and all characters mentioned in this story belong to me: please do not steal them.

**Dedications**: This combination song/story is dedicated to my Lord Jesus, and to all the family and friends who have stood by me through my life. I know the ending seems grim, but think of it this way: whatever that uncertain future may bring, we are here, we are together. And for that, I shall always be grateful.

Enjoy.

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**En La Memoria**

_**I'm not the easiest person to love;  
I'm often the one who lets things go  
unresolved**_

Klavorna watched the snow drifting in lazy spirals on a gentle wind. It smattered her cloak and hood with speckled layers of whitish fluff. She shook her muzzle once, stamping her feet, and felt the numbness of cold echo up her ankles. Her long ears twitched to the muffled fall of snow from a nearby tree, and with a low cough of annoyance she paced back a step, keeping the line of low-hanging spruce branch between herself and the wide space beyond the forest. She scanned the treeline running the base of the slope below her, and sighed once.

A low patter above. She glanced up. A flash of black, sharp as quicksilver, brought a light smile to the gray hare's lips.

"Come down Koal, I saw you."

A disgruntled hiss. From the leaves just before her a black head appeared, and Klavorna startled an inch. The squirrel grinned.

"Seems I still surprised you."

The hare shrugged, trying to seem nonchalent, "Just the wrong direction, that's all. Where's Ruthar?"

"Here."

Both hare and squirrel whirled around. The plain brown otter behind them smiled, his dark green eyes twinkling as he sauntered into the shade of the massive spruce, "Seems I'm the one who managed to surprise, milady, and surprise you both too."

Koal snorted, and Klavorna chuckled as she leaned back against the tree, "Ruthar, I think I said before: no more milady, or things like that. My name itself will do."

The otter shrugged, "Old habits die hard, and I, for one, prefer it that way," he paused as the gray hare's eyes flashed, "But I shall keep that in mind."

The hare inclined her head, cold as snow herself, "Thank you."

_**Yet you choose to be  
on the side of me,  
on the side of me.**_

Snow began to fall in quicker rhythm, flowing with the growing wind. The snowshoe hare shook her head again and blew through her paws, "So, have you an idea why I called you both here?"

Koal shrugged, and Ruthar smiled, a thin trace of laughter lighting his eyes. The otter tucked his javelin securely into the corner of a spruce branch, his lips pursing as he looked her squarely in the eye.

"You want to talk about the past, and what we are doing, here and now."

Klavorna raised a brow, "Am I truly so transparent?"

"No milady, I am simply very good at reading emotions."

"I'm sure I told you..."

"...not to call you milady," Koal finished for her, her long black brush waving back and forth, "I'm sure he heard it, lady, but we would rather turn a deaf ear on that."

The hare groaned, quick anger diffused by the unexpected assault, "Not you too..."

"Well, too bad I guess," the squirrel glanced upwards, her tail flicking in the way it always did when she was amused, "You could hardly expect us to do any less, Klavorna, we having known your father and his family."

The hare's eyes darkened, "Yes, my family, that was what I wished to talk to you about."

_**I'm not too proud of some things  
I've done in my life;  
The skeletons in my closet  
Are too big for me to hide.**_

"You know we are fighting this war now because of...of my mother, in a way," Klavorna hesitated, "It is my mother's clan I avenge, barring all those notions of peace and justice and blah. I left her clan not knowing what she had done for me, never knowing what she had done until I found Amon again. I cannot forgive her for some things still, yet I cannot turn away from what she meant. But the way has been more bloody than I thought, it has taken far longer too..."

She halted, turned away. She closed her eyes, seeing again her mother: a dark brown furred female hare, petite, delicate and altogether too complicated to deny. The wind drifted by her whiskers in a puff of snow. She opened her eyes again, and the vision dissolved into white, into a plain brown otter and a black squirrel standing before her. She smiled wryly.

"Yet in all this I have done nothing for the beasts who truly stood by me, regardless of what way I chose."

Ruthar cocked his head at her; Koal's golden eyes were bright, her expression an odd mix of annoyance and amusement. The hare looked back at them.

"And instead of seeking out our own clan as I was doing, and should have kept doing, I dragged us all into this needless war. All for a clan that has never wanted me, and indeed did not want me until I proved to be of use to them."

**_Yet you choose to be  
on the side of me,  
on the side of me._**

A muffled huff erupted from Koal. Ruthar sent a sharp glance at her, and the squirrel bit down whatever she had been about to burst out with. He turned to the hare, his voice soft.

"You are upset about Ketara."

Koal's angry eyes flicked to him, glanced back to Klavorna, and then subsided. The dark gray hare nodded once, hardly perceptible, "Aye. She left. She had the right idea, methinks."

Silence. Koal shifted her stiff footpaws, shook a flurry of snow from her brushed, and sighed softly.

"It was her decision, lady, just as it is our decision to stay," the black squirrel cast a sly glance at the otter beside her, "Not everybeast is as patient as Ruthar."

He chuckled good-naturedly, his green eyes glinting, "Nor is everybeast as gentle as Koal (the squirrel huffed). Here milady, I was hurt too when Ketara left. She having been with us all this while. Think of that: she was with us at your sire's burial, and afterward when we sought out his daughter. Koal and I felt it too, when she went off so abruptly."

**_What a mystery:  
You're on the side of me;_**  
**_on the side of me_**

Klavorna flicked an ear at him thoughtfully, her right paw toying idly with her tunic hem. She blinked.

"She told me, before she left, that she had a life to pursue, and dreams to hold to on her own. She could not spend out her life here..."

Otter and squirrel looked at each other. Both knew the words that Klavorna had not spoken. It had been said to them too, the day before Ketara confronted her leader. All three knew well why the other hare had left, and each felt it keenly. She had gone to find her future elsewhere. She had felt there was no future here, with Klavorna and Amon and the freedom fighters. The dark gray hare left out a soft breath, which the rising wind promptly seized and tore off with.

"Maybe I should leave too, take you both with me. Our task here is nearly done anyhow..."

Klavorna raised her head to her two warriors, who looked back at her.

**_'Cause everyone needs a hand to hold  
when it's cold outside  
and there's no place to go._**

Silence held a moment longer, then Ruthar broke the quiet with a strong, still voice.

"Milady, you gave your word to Amon," he turned away from her, gazed out into the snowy expanse beyond the spruce's bare cover, "And your word to your mother's clan. The blood of your mother's side may not run in us, but we are pledged to you, as we were to your father."

His eyes met Klavorna's. Koal twitched an ear in surprise as the dark gray hare met it, and averted her gaze. Ruthar spoke on.

"You must pardon me lady, but I would say this: your father would not have broken a word he made. You know this. He never broke his word, until his death. Your father was a great beast, worthy to make his vows before the Lord of the Seasons himself."

Klavorna stiffened, her paw suddenly tightened over the dagger she had been fingering. Koal pulled back her lips, and a soft hiss barely heard above the wind escaped her teeth. The otter was relentless.

"We respected him for what he was. For that reason we followed him. For that reason we now follow his child as well."

Klavorna swallowed. She met his eyes, her sharp stare akin to fire, to anger. Ruthar held the piercing gaze, and this time it was he who turned away first. But he spoke still, in spite of the gray hare.

"We would follow you into death, or life."

_**I remember when nobody cared  
Nobody cared...**_

The hare's gaze lingered on him a moment longer, then flicked to Koal. Slowly, the black squirrel nodded. Klavorna blinked, once, and then sighed as she straightened, her movements stiff and weary. She pawed the hilt of her dagger, her ears flicking back against her neck.

**_...but you_**

"I remember the day you three found me," her voice was quiet, "I was raw, uncertain, grieving for things I had not wanted, yet was completely responsible for."

"I remember..." Koal's voice tore her from the reverie, "...that I saw strength then, and courage and honour. Courage to see what you didn't want to see. Honour to acknowledge the wrong of it. Strength to do both."

Ruthar nodded, "As did I."

"We don't have a clan to fight for any more, Klavorna," Koal's voice was soft, "Nor do we have one to live for. Ketara chose to fill that gap by finding her own path. Ruthar and I would rather have a road made for us by our leader. Call us weak if you will. I'll take that from you. And you only."

She stared off into the space beyond the spruse, her brush set stiffly, "I'm no coward: when I make my choices, I stick by them."

**_I'm not the easiest person to love  
But you, you've opened your heart to show me what I'm worth_**

Klavorna looked at the black squirrel, with her set features and stubborn jaw. Ruthar's green eyes were calm, but purposeful, his shoulders set firmly. He twitched his ears and curled his rudder around his feet.

"Koal speaks for both of us, milady. For myself, I would serve no one else," he shuffled his feet, chilled, "I...I lost my purpose when your father died, milady. Finding you, I felt the Lord of the Seasons had given me back that purpose again. Truly."

_**'Cause you choose to be  
on the side of me  
on the side of me**_

She could not hold back the smile pricking at her lips. They loved her, and they would follow her. Even if convincing her meant standing an hour half-frozen in a fresh gale of winter. A laugh tickled the back of her throat, rising from somewhere deep in her chest; she coughed instead, retaining her poise, and nodded.

"I see I must thank the Lord of the Seasons for sending me such overly stubborn folk to care for. Very well then, this war is almost over anyway. A few more battles, we'll see them through. And may the Lord of the Seasons be with us to grant us peace and passage afterward."

She looked straight at both of them, "But I vow this: after this war is done we will seek out Ketara, and go to find what we may find of my father's clan, or else make a home for ourselves in peace."

_**'Cause everyone needs a friend to hold  
when it's cold outside  
and there's no place to go.**_

She shivered as a fresh gust of wind blew snow bits through the group. Koal and Ruthar were smiling, bright smiles that she delibrately ignored despite her chuckling. The hare nodded towards the white-washed landscape beyond, "Come then, since tis' decided, we should get back, or we'll be ice statues. Lead the way, my friends."

Koal was the first out of the spruce cover, shaking the snow off her tail. Ruthar followed more sedately, his javelin held light in one paw. Klavorna followed as her companions began the road back to the camp, her ears flicking back to the rustles of the wind, her lips not quite able to hide the lightness she felt. When this war was over, she would repay her debt to Ruthar and Koal, and her yet unknown people: she would take the roads southward, seek out her father's clan, and try somehow to rebuild what the years had torn from her life and her own kin. She owed it to them.

_**Yeah you choose to be...**_

The snow fell in growing sheets, draping branch and earth alike. Three beasts stroked quiet but sure through the chilled curtains of white, moving strongly. None of them knew what the future would bring. Neither of them knew that by the next evening two of them would be with the Lord of the Seasons, having given their lives to serve the third.

_**...on the side of me... **_

But right then and there, in that cold evening of early winter, they knew they were together, they were at peace, they were well.

**_...on the side of me._**

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End file.
